Greg Daniels Teams With NBC To Develop Friday Night Dinners For American TV

If you were looking for the next James Burrows, Greg Daniels might be the heir apparent to the aging TV super writer-director-producer. If you're not familiar with Burrows, you are definitely familiar with his work, which includes creating the seminal sitcom Cheers. Similarly, you may not know Daniels but you know his work. He cut his teeth on The Simpsons before adapting The Office for American television and then co-created Parks and Recreation. The man's got some serious credentials and his new project is another UK import.

The success of The Office is comparable to almost any of the American sitcom greats with Parks and Recreation well on it's way to becoming the best of the genre that is currently airing on network television. So, for his next project, Deadline is reporting that, "Greg Daniels is taking on another half-hour British format for the network, this time a family comedy. I hear that NBC has put in development an U.S. version of the U.K. series Friday Night Dinner." Daniels is going back to the UK well. Does the new super series showrunner not have any original ideas?

The article explains that it is still unclear exactly what role Daniels will fill in the importing process, whether he will write or direct the pilot is sill very much up in the air. The British series Friday Night Dinner was created by Robert Popper and revolves around the Friday night Shabbat dinners of reform Jewish family, the Goodmans. Some of the colorful characters that comprise the Goodman family are... The fairly normal sons, Adam and Johnny who reluctantly visit on Fridays. Parents Jackie and Martin, the former obsessed with Masterchef, the latter frequently walks around topless. And Lastly, a grandma who sports a bikini and a next door neighbor constantly crashing the party. Sounds promising?

Daniels current shows, Office and Parks, are both nominated for the Emmy for best comedy series, making him the first comedy writer-producer since 1975 to have two shows competing against each other (James L. Brooks and Allan Burns did it with Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda).

Parks and Recreation returns Thursday, September 22 at 8:30 p.m. with The Office at 9, both on NBC.